Why should the govt. save the banks?

leahcim said:
It would be very difficult to identify any law that has been broken.
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If a one-man-band carpenter or plumber had run their company into the ground in the way that certain banks appear to have been run, the ODCE would be waiting to pounce on them and invoke all sorts of legal sanctions on them. The irony is that most of these cases have been conducted on foot of complaints to the ODCE by either the banks or the State, in the form of the Revenue.
 

Since when is running a company into the ground illegal. Its your company you can run it into the ground if you want. If while running it into the ground you decided that you were not going to pay tax or defraud your investors that would be a different story, you would be breaking the law.

The ODCE would only become involved if the company directors broke the law. What law have the banks broke?

Dont get me wrong I thing the regulator and the bank directors should be in trouble, and made acountable for getting us into this mess but I would say they have their asses well covered. They can blame it all on American sub prime lending.
 
leahcim said:
The ODCE would only become involved if the company directors broke the law. What law have the banks broke?
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I am not going to speculate on specifics but I think its fair to state that there is at least some anecdotal evidence of some reckless trading on the part of some of the parties involved in this sorry mess. I would be amazed if no laws have been broken.
 
 
yoganmahew said:
Oh, and your "great to get one over on the Brits" comment makes me feel quite queasy.
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For goodness sake, where is your sense of humour?? All the european banks are taking our lead.. Germany who criticized us, changed their mind pretty quickly...
 
Elphaba said:
For goodness sake, where is your sense of humour?? All the european banks are taking our lead.. Germany who criticized us, changed their mind pretty quickly...
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The other European states, apart from Denmark who are outside the euro and facing a banking meltdown, have only protected retail deposits. The Germans have said they will insure 568 bn euro, while Ireland, with one twentieth of the population of Germany is insuring 400 bn euro. Now if you think the deal makes sense and is sustainable that's fine. I do not.
 

I completly agree, the banks can get away with murder. But usually the senior banks officials claim ignorance when these scandals break.
Usually all that happens is that the bank gets fined and is left to go on its
merry way. You could always argue that the lower level people in the bank who sell these schemes (offshore etc) to clients be prosecuted but because they did not benefit from the fraud personally and only did it make money for the bank it would be very harsh. Many of them mightn't have even understood that they are doing wrong in the first place.

In the end of the day tax evasion in Ireland is a crime that you rarely see people doing time for. If you can afford the interest and penalties imposed by the revenue you are have a good chance of avoiding jail time.
 
leahcim said:
They were very naughty boys indeed.
But what do you propose?
My gut feeling is that no heads will roll because of this..
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I'd agree. My point was that a reprimand as you suggest is completely ineffective.

I think there's a world of difference in letting an insolvent enterprise failing (assuming deposits are guarenteed, to stop a run on all the other banks) and the entire financial system collapsing.

The longer the inevitable is postponed, the worse it will get.
 
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